


The War's Too Pretty

by jackmarlowe



Category: Trainspotting (1996)
Genre: Character Study, Drug Addiction, Homophobic Language, M/M, Slurs, Trainspotting 2 - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-03
Updated: 2017-02-03
Packaged: 2018-09-21 19:40:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9563513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jackmarlowe/pseuds/jackmarlowe
Summary: There are certain behaviours one avoids, Simon knows.Set during T2.





	

Not that he’s gay like Begbie is. Begbie’s nae fuckin poof and Simon thinks sometimes he _could_ be, the potential dug into his spine like ground glass. Lately he’s made certain kinds of porn an anthropological study: no just the hair and stomachs on these LA twinks but what kind of upholstery they fuck on, how often it’s obvious when a gay man’s had that decisive hand in the curtains. Something in his gut goes when they’re moanin and groanin over something more thought-about and tastefully minimalist than Ikea and that’s how he knows he’s still gay, a middle aged gay fuck who fucks one woman once every ten years and has a screaming irritated wank over an old Sex Pistols record when he’s too jittery to keep his hands to himself like. There’s no shred of denial to Simon – no like fucking Begbie – and it’s this raw self-knowledge that makes him shit himself smug, takes pride at no fucking touching and the violently profound lack of _need_ as he slips on his sandals and his faggot shirt and his sneer.

Jesus though not that he lacks it. He slips like a good addict and fucks and lets himself be fucked in giddy coke states as you’d expect. _His fuckin temper_ , the last one complained; Ah’m just oota fuckin rehab, he screamed, hae some _fuckin_ _humanity_ , and felt instantly better for it though it’s a lie. But Jesus it’s good not being tied down. From the moment he sees Mark he batters this into his own fuckin skull from the inside until he’s sure him or Veronika or some cunt on the street can hear his own internal monster roaring: it’s good, it’s good, it’s so good. So good not to. Oh sae fuckin good. At the same time that same mindless natterfuck’s goin and goin oh so good, _oh_ so good at the lines of Mark’s hips like they’re kids and Simon’s panting for him all over again, could just lick the skag out his hotwire veins. That’ll no fuckin do. There are certain behaviours one avoids.

The third time he sees him, still scheming this new Amsterdam fucking grey Mark Renton’s downfall with his distant river eyes and his boring accountant hairspikes, Simon picks him up on the side of the road in Linlithgow. Mark’s gone to see his auntie but she’s no in. The bus won’t come for an hour so here Simon is with his phone all lit up like a good helpful dog. He scowls to be familiar and lets Mark sit glum with his face out the window, slams the gearshift hard to suggest he’s peeved but nae sweat pal.

\-- Ye been busy today -- Nah -- Where's Veronika -- How should Ah know -- Well if ye’ve no been busy-

\-- How, Simon asks patiently, should Ah know, when’s she’s no on the clock?

Mark gives him a sideways look resentful like he’s gone to a European feminist march or five and Knows Things Now. -- I thought you were done havin tha sort of business relationship.

\-- She’s ma girlfriend, he sings manic and cheerful, third time to relish. The engine revs as they snarl up the hill towards Edinburgh proper, watery sunlight gasping through the windshield. -- An dinnae fuckin forget it. I won' hae ye getting ideas above your station.

Veronika looks exactly like the sorts of girls Mark used to like to fuck. This was back when he had hair from a previous fucking century and they’d wank each other off as slippy gasping teenagers in Simon’s basement. Later they’d just sit and watch tapes sullen and detached like what they did for Tommy’s and there was a brief period where Simon heavily suspected that Mark was as disgusted as he was but then one day he gave voice to whatever unspoken tension sat between them by turning all sudden into a fucking film critic. He’d do an American accent like he was announcing at the Academy Awards and for a few weeks this was their primary giggling go-to until the next diversion dropped heavy and spiritual.

A few times later – and it’s abrupt, when Simon’s no got his mind around what he’s doing but insists to himself he does – they do fuck, Veronika be damned. As adults, it’s a surprise, the eventuality they never tripped over though they’ve done addiction and breaking teeth. Not fuckin terror auld terrified bufties like Begbie or anyone they know but something imported and American-feeling, Rents groggy and old beneath Simon’s tacky red satin sheets watching him apply whitening strips to his teeth and yank a toothbrush and bleach through his hair. When they fuck he calls him Sickboy and Simon laughs his throat hyena raw with his teeth in his shoulder and can’t stop himself moving and moving. They’re both heavier and Mark treats his body like it’s softer than it is, which he hates. He didnae pay for a personal trainer, at the _gay gym_ , nae less, to play house wi his ex best friend after the space of twenty years. But it’s good. It quickly gets perilous and close to the old song: it’s so good, it’s _sae_ _good Mark Jesus Jesus ohhh_ -

You make it so obvious how in love you both are, Veronika comments dryly. She says it more than once, a reminder. She thinks when he’s doing coke he forgets but there’s nowt sharper than that. Were he not in this business of furious gleeful pretence he could play with this, snap at this: not in love with Mark but that he’s _won_. Do ye no understand, he wants to snarl petulant with her head between his palms, rattle this in without shaking her. Her of all people. But she’s only a bairn and their resolute raging apartness has lasted and lasted longer than she’s been writing her own name. Ya ken, V. No hard feelings likesay.

Gay and middle-aged, he should want to settle down. He’s an addict: if it no longer feels good then change it no matter how grisly and doomed the end of the line. Not gay like he was, but he could be in love with Mark, he lets his brain reason, after a time. It’s no like it’s fuckin incompatible wi revenge.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry about my Scots. Title is a lyric from 'No Way' by Young Fathers.


End file.
